Installation and relocation of permanent terrestrial monitoring sampling locations

Byrne, Michael; Corbett, Sarah; Smrekar, Briana

This Standard Operating Procedure explains the installation and relocation of permanent sampling locations as part of the implementation of the Southeast Coast Network’s terrestrial monitoring protocols (i.e., amphibian, landbird, and vegetation communities, and fire fuels). Because of the potentially controversial issues involved with installing rebar and relocating with metal detectors in parks with electrically-conductive metal artifacts (i.e., those detected with a metal detector), permission must be obtained from park managers to allow the permanent installation of sampling locations. The macroplot, or transect, plot, and subplot array for four co-located terrestrial Vital Signs, is permanently marked with seven 0.5” Å~ 12” rebar. Each piece of rebar serves as the permanent tie-in for a specific transect and the plots and subplots associated with that transect. The rebar are installed in a radial array on azimuths of 0°/360°, 60°, 120°, 180°, 240° and 300° (Figure 1). Each piece of rebar is capped with a unique identifier indicating the position of the rebar within the macroplot. Specifically, the markers identify the transect bearing, the distance from the center of the circular plot, or the center of the plot itself. The rebar caps are labeled and colored as indicated in Table 1 and depicted in Figure 2. Monitoring protocols associated with four Vital Signs are currently co-located at each sampling location, therefore at least one rebar serves a purpose for each protocol. The landbird- and amphibian-community monitoring protocols only warrant the center rebar, whereas the fire-fuels monitoring protocol requires three rebar, and the vegetation-community monitoring protocol involves the entire array of rebar.

Installation and relocation of permanent terrestrial monitoring sampling locations

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